self + care

self love isn’t always a mani-pedi and taking selfies when your face is beat, ladies. sometimes self love is ugly. sometimes, self love has to be ending a toxic relationship, making tough choices, and sometimes self love means sacrifice. I think today, in all this #blackgirlmagic and #selflove on the interwebs, though glorious and full of joy and honey and brown sugar, we’ve begun to glamorise a sometimes gory process. and not just that, we’re doing it in a way that can taint the concept of self love for young girls growing into it. imagine, a preteen only ever seeing #selflove under photos of expensive manicures or new clothes. she’d grow to attach the concept of loving herself to buying more things for herself, or to having surface level changes made, like the color of her nail polish. my point is, this process is becoming pretentious.

i’ve been truly loving on myself since the start of sophomore year – and i’ve learnt. so. much. my process, though, was nothing like the shiny acrylics and new pairs of heels i’m seeing daily online that my peers use to define their process. it made me wonder if i’ve been doing it wrong this whole time, then I checked myself and was like girl, you love yourself like cook food, you’ve definitely done it right. 

and that’s the point. you have to actually like being you. self love is not an excuse to break your budget on impulsive, ridiculous, materialistic buys talkin’ bout some “treat yourself” – that’s actually dangerous, damaging behaviour that’s only hastening your financial demise (i’m being dramatic on purpose). if you loved yourself, you’d save more. that’s not to say treating yourself isn’t ridiculously fun and rewarding, but that’s not all taking care of yourself means. and I can counter myself and say that my self love journey started only after I got rid of physical attributes that I hated, which is a tricky subject. It took me cutting all my unhealthy hair off in freshman year, a partial run of braces, and getting rid of my acne to even think I was worth the self love journey. but don’t let that be the case for you, please. it’s not just a physical journey.

how many of you claim to love yourselves, but are obsessively attached to emotionally abusive or manipulative partners? or claim to love yourselves, but don’t ever get enough sleep, or eat well at all. do you drink water? your body loves that shit. you should try it, that’s self love. how often do you get tested? that’s self love. do you know what every inch on your body looks and feels like? do you know what you’re good at? do you think about yourself, with respect to others? do you think about what you actually want to do in life? do you cry when you need to? do you know when to stop feeling sorry for yourself? when to admit you’ve done wrong? do you know when and how to trust? do you know how to be alone, and not sad? alone, and not lonely? – that is a thing, I do it all the time, I love being alone so much it’s embarrassing sometimes. i’ll show up to whole parties alone and see my friends there wondering who I came with – I came with myself, guys, i’m my date duhhh.

i’ve gotten very good at loving myself. I used to be so troubled by facebook posts and tweets that other pretty girls make (lol), I used to make everything into a competition, and validate myself with attention received. I used to be sad all the time, and my anxiety was never truly managed until now. I used to be scared to express my personality and my opinions (still working on that in some spaces). and that’s part of self love too, it’s an ongoing, evolving and eternal thing. and it applies to every aspect of your life – spiritual, financial, emotional, social, professional, academic, all of it leads to your relationship with yourself. the discipline and character you’ve chosen to inherit or develop is backed by the awareness of self you’ve acquired. but now, i’m clumsily flourishing in my own ways, and becoming the woman I always thought I wanted to be. key word: clumsily – this is a real and human process, and it’s not always a pretty pedicure. my self love involves audible crying and writing out painful truths and exercise (when I muster up the discipline, i’m working on it) and withdrawing from people who have caused me pain. my self love also involves listening to my record collection, a lot of coffee making, a lot of wine pouring, a lot of reading, writing lists, using my planner, a lot of making (of random, crafty things), and a lot of friendship. I even have a self love soundtrack that I play when I need to remind myself i’m not scum, here’s one song off of it. a suggestion I have for you, is self dates – take yourself out. I started only because i’ve been annoyingly single basically all my damn life, but want to do date things like dinner and movies. so I just decided to start doing them on my own. they’re now my favourite days. I go get coffee, I visit record shops, I walk to random places, I go out to eat, I go watch a movie, whatever it is, but that time is spent deliberately asking myself tough questions and starting a type of internal discourse. that discourse always brings forth progress for me. it always inspires me to make changes, even if teeny tiny ones, that bring me closer to my spiritual centre and to my purpose. and I always end the date feeling like a badass who’s about to conquer the world. energised and feeling myself. on a whole new level – incited by me and carried on as long as I decide. that’s powerful, and I wish the feeling even on my worst enemy.

treating yourself well also raises your standards for how you are to be treated by others. you’ll never settle for lacklustre relationships if you’ve established the opposite of that on your own. you’ll never accept verbal abuse if the way you speak to yourself is genuine and uplifting.

I challenge you to ask yourself everything you’ve been choosing to ignore, to spend a whole day with yourself, to look at yourself naked (try dancing naked too), to take a good nap, hydrate with water, and take care of your everblessed 😉 (my jamaican ladies know just what I mean). and while you’re at it,

stay ever blessed